EA to Release Origin Access Premier Next Week - The UpStream

EA to Release Origin Access Premier Next Week

At E3 2018, one of the most surprising announcements was from Electronics Arts in the form of a new tier for Origin Access. The service is a subscription which gives access to The Vault, which is a large collection of back catalog games, as well as discounts on all purchases made in the Origin Store. It also offers demos of games 5 days prior to launch, so that you can get a feel for the game to decide whether to purchase it or not.

While Origin Access has been highly successful for EA, they have decided to turn the current offering into a tier called Basic, while adding Premier with two major changes. First, rather than getting 10 hours of demo 5 days before launch, Premier will offer the full game in that timeframe. That means that subscribers will get access to EA games nearly a week before other gamers.

Second, and far more importantly, The Vault will be widened, adding what EA calls "frontline" titles. This follows in Microsoft's footsteps, who recently added frontline games to their Game Pass service. Starting with Sea of Thieves, all Microsoft Studio games will be available same-day on Game Pass. Origin Access Premier steps this up a bit. According to Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen,

We do know from our EA Access experience and our Origin Access experience for non-frontline titles that we find people play twice as many games for twice as long and spend twice as much money as they did outside, or before they joined the subscription. That's what led us to believe that frontline titles would be also very advantageous to the subscription, as well as help drive new users into the system.

This new tier of Origin Access Premiere will launch on July 30, 2018, according to the company's most recent investor call. The service will run $15 per month or $100 per year. This is compared to $5 per month or $30 per year for the newly rebranded Basic tier. The first 4 confirmed frontline titles that will be included in the Premier tier will be Madden NFL 19 in August 2018, FIFA 19 in September 2018, Battlefield 5 in October 2018, and Anthem in February 2019.

If you are a current Origin Access subscriber, you need do nothing: your subscription will continue on uninterrupted as a Basic subscription. If you want to move up to Premier, you'll need to upgrade within the application.